Tune into this Week's Idaho Real Estate Buzz

Join us as we talk with Gabe Cordova of Firepoint the host of our site CoreHomeSearch.com, giving a full spectrum view of all the site has to offer for both home buyers and sellers. And later on listen in about our current featured listings and open houses.

Seg 1

Dave Burnett: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, I'm Dave Burnett along with Thom Dallman of Core Group Realty. CoreGroupRealty.com is the website. 933-7777 that is the phone number for you to call. And Thom we have ... I guess-

Thom Dallman: We have a special guest.

Dave Burnett: We'll call him a new old guest. An old new guest?

Thom Dallman: Yeah, right. The former guy on this radio buzz that we used to have on here, Gabe Cordova from now at Firepoint, LLC. We thought we'd invite Gabe in here to talk a little bit about the front-end experience on CoreHomeSearch.com, it's our search site for people to go looking for properties and get information on their current home values and stuff like that. So, thought we'd bring him in and actually talk about the experience a little bit for the consumer on the front end of our website.

Dave Burnett: Gabe, welcome back. As some people know, you were on this show a couple years ago now.

Gabe Cordova: Yeah, it's been a while, been a while [crosstalk 00:00:57]

Dave Burnett: But it's a show that you started and left and went into a new venture. Tell us about that.

Gabe Cordova: I don't know if I left, but maybe transitioned over. Thom and I still worked very closely with in real estate, in the community, and really it was more of a transition. Still in real estate, still here in the community in Boise, but it's a software company and you don't have a lot of software companies here in Boise. Lot of times you hear of them in Denver and Silicon Valley, but we're primarily out of Boise here, all of our training support and its real estate software for buyers, sellers, and real estate agents.

Dave Burnett: Okay. So, what does it do for me as a company or for an agent, what does it do for me?

Gabe Cordova: So, a couple things. So, if we focus on I mean if you're listening and you're looking at buying and selling and you're one of Thom's clients, what it is that front-end website, so that CoreHomeSearch.com. When you log on and you're doing property searches, when you're looking for homes, checking values. When you want to see what is the value of your home, the home evaluation tool where you can go in and put in the characteristics of your home. Get estimated values, any of that information, just everything that a consumer sees on the front end, we provide that to the real estate agent, to the brokerage, and to the team for them to customize and set it up so that, at the end of the day really, I'm guessing like for Tom, it's really to provide a tool that's synced with the local MLS. And again, this is across the country we're providing it, but we're based here in Boise, and because it's updated with the MLS like every 15 minutes, it's a lot more accurate than some of the big dogs like Zillow and Trulia and Realtor.com. Thom, you probably get the calls from people-

Thom Dallman: Oh yeah.

Gabe Cordova: on those websites where homes aren't available anymore because they don't update that often. So, we're offering a solution to real estate agents and companies for their clients to have something up to date and accurate for the consumers to use.

Dave Burnett: Thom, we've talked about the website and how crucial that is in this day and age-

Thom Dallman: Yep.

Dave Burnett: What does this service mean for you at CoreGroupRealty.com?

Thom Dallman: It gives us a tool to allow our consumers to be able to look at MLS information more quickly and efficiently than any other sites out there-

Gabe Cordova: Like realtime.

Thom Dallman: Realtime, exactly. So, they're actually seeing when new things come on and the most current information that's out there and available. So when something gets taken off the market, it's taken off pretty quickly on our site, too. They're really getting true life information as it's happening in the industry right now.

Gabe Cordova: Well, you guys have talked about on this show how crazy the market is -

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Gabe Cordova: and things are moving fast and if you're a consumer and you're looking or you're thinking about selling, you need accurate information now. Not what was accurate two or three days ago. And that's what we're providing our clients like Thom so that he can then pass along that information to his buyers, sellers, and everybody that are coming to him for that information.

Dave Burnett: And how different that is than 10 years ago-

Thom Dallman: (laughs)Right, right.

Dave Burnett: You waited every Thursday for the MLS book to come out.

Thom Dallman: (laughs)

Dave Burnett: Now, a day or two can make a difference between getting that property or not.

Gabe Cordova: Absolutely. And I think the big difference, you say like 10 years ago, so there's different sides to it. So not only is it providing the tools for Thom and his team to produce this information and provide it to their clients, but it also provides them with the tools on the back end so when the clients are reaching out saying I have questions about this, or can you please send me listings like this or updates like this, it's all in one place so they can send those updates all through the system and it's just easier. So, when everybody's communicating and everything's in one spot, the whole transaction, everything goes so much more smoothly. So basically, there's a front end what the consumers, the buyers and sellers are seeing, and then the back end for the real estate agents, which is what Thom and his team and all of them use to communicate, not only internally with their own agents, but with the buyers and sellers and the lenders all at the same time.

Thom Dallman: Yep. As we talk about all the time on this show, we're on big team and this is the system that provides that communication piece with the team between us, the lender like Gabe said, and the consumer themselves. Make sure everyone is on the same page, we're moving forward together because that communication is really super important in this market. (laughs) Getting things in there as quick as possible.

Dave Burnett: I guess it's funny, you know we got to websites whether it's CoreGroupRealty.com or whatever website and we take for granted how easy it is just to click on that and look at that-

Thom Dallman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Dave Burnett: because it's there.

Thom Dallman: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Dave Burnett: As a consumer, as somebody who surfs the Web, you begin to take that for granted that there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make that function smoothly.

Gabe Cordova: Yeah, there is. And I think that the consumers also aren't probably aware a lot of times that the public websites and I'm not picking on Zillow or Realtor.com or any of those. They serve a purpose and everything. But I don't think the consumers know too on average they only have about 80% of the inventory because agents have to allow Zillow to do that. Not all agencies do that because that's their information. So when we provide this out to Thom so he can offer it back out to his buyers and sellers, it's additional information that he's providing because he's giving them every listing that's on the MLS, not just 80% of them like Zillow and stuff. So it really gives them the whole picture and when it's a competitive market, you don't want to miss 20% of the market.

Thom Dallman: Ha-ha. Exactly

Dave Burnett: Three to four years ago, that would've been okay.

Gabe Cordova: (laughs)

Dave Burnett: Seriously, when homes would sit on the market for two-three months, you could allow that time.

Thom Dallman: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Gabe Cordova: Yeah.

Dave Burnett: But what's the average home sitting on the marketplace now?

Thom Dallman: For Ada County, we're at about 29 days right now, I believe-

Dave Burnett: So less than a month?

Thom Dallman: -average. Yeah, for less than a month. But a lot of those homes are selling very quickly (laughs).

Gabe Cordova: -where they don't sell until they go and then the people who just throw them on the market-

Thom Dallman: Correct.

Gabe Cordova: -if I can get this that would be great and then they never sell. So that's pretty insane when you start seeing less than a month. So you have to have tools, whether you're an agent or a buyer to look at to know that you're seeing everything.

Dave Burnett: Well, if you take a month if you throw out the high and throw out the low, you're probably looking about two weeks.

Thom Dallman: Yeah [crosstalk 00:06:45] (laughs). Exactly

Gabe Cordova: It is. We're constantly working on the system and again, we offer this across the country and Canada. We have thousands and thousands of users across the US and Canada using the service. And what's really cool is we got to build this here in Boise, which is one of the things I was talking with Thom about and where he's hey, let's talk about this on the show and let people know this is a local company. Again, the training, the support, sales teams, everybody's right here in West Boise on Emerald Street. It's all happening here for the entire US and Canada.

Dave Burnett: You talked about looking for employees. What are you looking for?

Gabe Cordova: Right now, in fact, because we are growing, we are looking for what we call our account managers, customer service managers who work with clients like Thom. So when maybe something isn't updated or something's not working correctly or they need to add more features or something like that, we are currently looking for people to do that. It's a full-time position again right here in Boise. We got a great campus here, it's a great atmosphere, incredible benefits, and we're looking to hire two or three account managers immediately. And-

Dave Burnett: Well, what are the qualifications?

Gabe Cordova: They love to see somebody that has some real estate experience. So what's really unique about Firepoint is it's being built by agents for agents so that we know what the consumers need. We know what the team leads need to provide top level service to their clients. So we love candidates that have some real estate experience, whether that was in real estate sales or assistance, transaction coordinators in the lending side, title side. You can even currently be licensed and maybe just doing it part-time, but want a full-time job that has full benefits for you and your family. You don't have to have that real estate experience. We can teach it. We've actually sent people over to work with Thom and his team to make sure that they're understanding real world what's going on. So that when consumers are calling in, if there's something wrong with the site, they know what's going on. But we'd love that they have customer service, but really we just want some good down-to-Earth, work hard play hard people and if there's anybody listening, or you know somebody-

Dave Burnett: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Gabe Cordova: -you can reach out to us at careers@firepoint.net. Again, that's careers with an s at firepoint.net. We'd love to hear from you, you can email your resume, but yeah, we want to hire two or three immediately and it's-

Dave Burnett: Do they need to have computer experience and programming or have you got this-[crosstalk 00:09:03]

Gabe Cordova: No, no, this isn't programming at all. Not at all. It'd be nice if you knew your way around a computer obviously, but I think most everybody has that today. But we're hiring and we want to continue hire local and support the community and the job industry right here in Boise.

Dave Burnett: Thom is there a link on the website if someone wants to get a hold of them or can they just get a hold of you here at-

Thom Dallman: They can just get a hold of us and we can communicate the contact information from there. For sure.

Gabe Cordova: Again, they just use that email and it come right through us, but we work closely with Thom as well, but we'd love if anybody listening or knows somebody that's interested to reach out to us and you know, see what we can do.

Dave Burnett: What was the motivating factor for you to leave full-time real estate to go and do this? What is it that made you do that?

Gabe Cordova: So I've been doing real estate for 15 years. Started off as a single agent, started building our team Thom and I together a long time ago and then to the brokerage and it was really a shift in passion and [inaudible 00:10:02] or the tools that are out there. And Thom and I have been using tools in real estate for a long time and nothing has really ever provided what we needed to provide top level service. To have transparency in our business to see what's going on and what we need to do to really be the best we can be.

Dave Burnett: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Gabe Cordova: And it came down to nothing was really ever built by anyone within the industry. So, when we say Firepoint's built by agent for agent, we mean that. The founder's been in real estate and the president of the company in real estate. Some of our account managers were right here from Core Group that transitioned over into that role. So, a lot of our people have real estate experience. The ones that don't we have extra training in that. And it was just a different passion to provide tools to real estate professionals across the country so that they can be the best that they can be and provide the best tools to their clients.

Dave Burnett: Thom, other than the internet, is there anything else that has been more important to changing the way - maybe the car (laughs). That has changed the way that real estate is done today?

Thom Dallman: I don't think there's been anything. I mean, 90% of home searches start on the internet right now. So having that effective tool to find that information that you need as a buyer and a consumer is so important. It's where everyone's at (laughs) Everybody's on the internet.

Dave Burnett: By the way, CoreGroupRealty.com is where you can go and get on the internet to find all the things we've been talking about, about homes that are there, things on the MLS, homes are listed. Some of your blogs are there as well.

Thom Dallman: Yes, and this radio show is on there (laughs). Check out Real Estate Buzz if you want to look at past episodes and listen to them.

Dave Burnett: Okay, it was good to catch back with you see and that you are actually doing something because I see you from time to time and I wonder and I think, hmm, I wonder if he's really doing that? (laughs)

Gabe Cordova: Still in real estate full time, just in a different aspect and everything right here in Boise.

Dave Burnett: Alright, very good. This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz being brought to you by Diversified Mortgage and Core Group Realty. CoreGroupRealty.com that is a website. 933-7777.

Seg 3

Dave Burnett: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, I'm Dave Burnett along with Thom Dallman. Now, Thom is the co-owner and the designated broker of Core Group Realty. coregrouprealty.com is the website, you can always call 933-7777. Thom, welcome back, we've got another Saturday under way and another great week to buy or sell realty.

Thom Dallman: Another warm Saturday, right?

Dave Burnett: We've had a bunch of them this year.

Thom Dallman: Right? Exactly.

Dave Burnett: I guess in part of the heat, that's what makes it nice to be able to sit in the nice air conditioning and go to coregrouprealty.com, check out online what's happening.

Thom Dallman: If you're just kind of hibernating inside the cold air to avoid the hot air outside, it's definitely the site to go and check out and see all the things real estate related and what's happening in the marketplace right now.

Dave Burnett: And what do we have? Featured listings if you go to coregrouprealty.com, you have the featured listings tab.

Thom Dallman: Yep, we've got our featured listings tab with our internal listings that we have available out there so you can get a good idea of what's available through Core Group, as well as our search tab that takes you to our home search page, which you have all the information out there for listings that are current in the marketplace off of our MLS.

Dave Burnett: Let me ask you this, let me take a little side street here before we get to those featured listings. If I have specifics, let's say I want to go somewhere on the west side of town and maybe I want the West Ada school district, can I specify what I want and where I want it and be able to narrow that search down?

Thom Dallman: You can. The website allows for you to do all kinds of little specialization, draw maps and stuff like that to really kind of pinpoint what you're looking for and where you're looking for. We have all kinds of ways of narrowing that down, and then us as agents have even further tools that we can narrow down too. So if for some reason the system isn't giving you as narrow a border as you want, you can let us know and we can definitely work on creating a search that will help narrow that down even more.

Dave Burnett: So that website coregrouprealty.com is good whether you're serious into buying and selling or if you're just kind of a daydreamer?

Thom Dallman: Yep.

Dave Burnett: I wonder if there's something out in Middleton or somewhere you can isolate it down and find out what's there and what the price looks like.

Thom Dallman: Exactly. It's a great tool. I love those dreamers. We get those people who are looking at the million-dollar homes and just dreaming big.

Dave Burnett: Well, you know what, you can look at them and many with the really full-featured as far as photos, some of them interactive as far as being able to tour them as well.

Thom Dallman: Oh yeah, for sure. A lot of them offer virtual tours and things like that through the MLS. So you can actually see some of that fun stuff on them.

Dave Burnett: I like on Sunday morning, getting up going out on the deck when it's cool, have a cup of coffee-- this time of year iced coffee, surf the web and be able to go, "okay, I'll daydream." Look at some of those homes and go, "man that'll be nice, hey maybe I can incorporate that in my house." You can do that at coregrouprealty.com.

Thom Dallman: And you can kind of see some of the trends too if you're on there frequently, check in once a month or what not and kind of see what the home prices are doing, going up, going down, kind of that information. It's real, live information, straight from our MLS, so it's current and accurate. You can really follow the trending housing market and stuff.

Dave Burnett: So on the featured listing this week at coregrouprealty.com, what do we got?

Thom Dallman: We've got a couple featured listings that I wanted to chat about. One of them just recently came on the market, this one's out in Nampa at 1125 W. Boone Avenue. A great three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath, 1,300 square feet. We talk a lot about investment properties and first-time home buyers and stuff like that. This was one of those properties perfect for that first-time home buyer or that investment rental property. It's listed at $155,000 so great price point to be able to get in there and maybe turn it into a rental, or if you're a first-time home buyer just looking for that type of house, if you're downsizing and want something a little bit smaller, it does have RV parking on it with electrical outlets, so you have a spot for your RV. It's really a nice little house. As our agent calls it, it has a little private oasis in the back, featuring raised garden beds and stuff like that, storage units, so it's really a nice little property. Once again at $155,000 for a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath, 1300 square foot house.

Dave Burnett: Something that I find very different than if we go back ten years or so, and understand I'm not making fun, but there was a time where if you had two[inaudible 00:04:56], it was like, oh that's Canyon County. That's not the case anymore. [crosstalk 00:05:00] Caldwell, they've just really got some beautiful subdivisions and nice homes that have been built there.

Thom Dallman: Exactly. Just with our growth and everything that we're experiencing, year after year, it's almost become a point where there's just not much of a division at all. And it's going to continue that way, all that land in between is being filled in and opportunities there.

Dave Burnett: [crosstalk 00:05:24] between 1A and 2C and that's pretty much disappeared. People travel back and forth, people that live in Boise traveling to Canyon County to work, people in Canyon County traveling to Ada County. It really is a great place, especially when you find these homes at a price point where it's great for a starter home or for a property investment.

Thom Dallman: Just to mention Valley View's high school too. Everyone loves that Valley View high school. It's a great school and this house falls in that school district. There's a lot of opportunity out there in Nampa and Caldwell. I encourage you guys if you're looking for that kind of house and that kind of community, they're really stepping it up out there.

Dave Burnett: Check that out at coregrouprealty.com. Are we going to move to the North End now?

Thom Dallman: This is actually considered Northeast Boise, out by Bown Crossing. Love that area. Love Bown Crossing. It's such a cute little area.

Dave Burnett: If you haven't gone traveled out there, if you haven't gone that way in a while, you owe it to yourself to make a little road trip and go out there. I hadn't been there for about a year and a half and drove out there and was like, "oh my goodness!"

Thom Dallman: They have some great little shops there, some great restaurants. Definitely worth checking out, especially this home we have listed out there.

Dave Burnett: It's worth the drive out there just to check it out, check out the shops, the stores, the beautiful homes that are out there. It is really one of the areas of Boise that I would consider, to me, a surprise.

Thom Dallman: It's so convenient to pretty much everything out there. Like the Shakespeare Festival, Warm Springs Road, the new Harris Ranch subdivision that's being built out there. They've done amazing park art built onto the greenbelt- that park that's there along the river, just right on the other side of Parkcenter where it switches over the river.

Dave Burnett: You're close to Highway 21 or back to the freeway if you need to go down the freeway and go to work.

Thom Dallman: If you're working up at Micron, it's easy access to get up there. A wonderful area out that way.

Dave Burnett: Anything else you want to talk about here today?

Thom Dallman: Yeah, I'd like to bring up our North End home. As you mentioned, we do have a beautiful home in the North End. 2409 N. 21st Street. This is one of Innovative Custom Homes' remodels. They went in and took this little two-bedroom, one-bath completely down to the studs. Redesigned it, revamped it, and have developed this four-bedroom, three-bath house. It's a two-story with below ground. Technically, there is the possibility of having six bedrooms in it. It's got an office that could be used as a bedroom, as well as the basement media room could also be converted into a bedroom as well. There's potential there. It's a huge home, it's 3,103 square foot, which is not common to find in the North End very often and on a quarter-acre. So .25.

Dave Burnett: So you've got acreage, you've got a large home in the North End.

Thom Dallman: In the North End. It's a beautiful home. She's done a really great job. I've had her on the show numerous times. Heather Echevarria, from Innovative Custom Homes, does such an amazing job with her remodels, with her new construction. She's innovative, they get new ideas all the time. She's constantly traveling trying to find out what the newest trends are and putting them into her homes. Definitely worth checking out. She's got it listed at $674,897 right now. They just laid down fresh new sod. They had a little glitch with the water company where they shut off the water for a little bit. It was supposed to be on another one of her homes that she had sold. A little glitch there and they put in new sod. It's got fresh green sod, it's just a beautiful home. It has a huge backyard with lots of space for toys, has back access through the alley so you can [crosstalk 00:10:38]

Dave Burnett: But the thing I love, what Heather does with homes, the inside is all brand new, but the outside still has that feel of the North End. She does an incredible job with that.

Thom Dallman: She works really hard to make sure that the home has its authentic North End feel to it, even on the inside. This one, the front door opens up into a kitchen, dining room space, which is typical for a North End home. She does try really hard to maintain the integrity and the look of a North End home, for sure.

Dave Burnett: We are talking Thom Dallman who is the co-owner and designated broker of Core Group Realty. You can see all these homes at coregrouprealty.com on the featured listings. These homes and so much more. You could spend hours going through all the homes that are available, because no matter what you hear, there are homes available and they're still affordable, as we've heard talked about with Michelle Guth, who Diversified Mortgage financing, even though everybody's talked about interest rates, it's still an incredibly low rate. We'll continue on the other side. This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, being brought to you by Diversified Mortgage, and Michelle Guth, we'll hear from her coming up, and the folks at Core Group Realty. 933-7777, give a call and find out why they say, "you get more, with Core."

Seg 4

Dave Burnett: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, I'm Dave Burnett along with Thom Dallman. Thom is the co-owner, designated broker at Core Group Realty, coregrouprealty.com that is the website for you to go to, to check out all things real estate, whether it's some blogs about things going on, whether it's about homes for sale ... listen to past shows, you can do it all right there at coregrouprealty.com

Thom Dallman: Yeah, check us out some. There's all kinds of useful information ... as we talk about on these shows. It's all about empowering and educating consumers, in the real estate market and giving them the most information that they can, when it comes time to buying or selling or ... doing anything in real estate ... investment

Dave Burnett: [crosstalk 00:00:44] I ask a ... question, we've talked about this about how the internet has changed the way that real estate is done ...

Thom Dallman: Yeah

Dave Burnett: About the way social media has changed, but something I see happen all the time on the weekends, and it's kinda old school, and I want to ask you the pros and cons of it, and that is open house here ...

Thom Dallman: The open house

Dave Burnett: They put balloons up, which I think is the international sign for "We have an open house" ... put those on there, but ...

Thom Dallman: Right, exactly.

Dave Burnett: ... is it a good thing, a bad thing, or changing thing?

Thom Dallman: My personal opinion is that it's still a good thing. It has its pros, it does have some cons to it as well, so we can definitely talk about those ... Kind of going back a little bit to what you said, yeah ... almost 90 ... I think they say that 90% of home searches begin online nowadays, so everybody is online looking for homes, checking into different websites and stuff like that. So, I think if you're gonna do an open house, it's super, super important to make sure that you are putting it online, somehow, letting people know that there's an open house. I think that the old days of just putting signs out does attract a few people out there, I think that there is still a small group of people who are not necessarily tech savvy and don't want to spend all day on the internet so they do spend weekends driving around looking for those open house signs and driving by. So, there's that small percentage of people that you do capture, that's one of the pros. I think there's ...

Dave Burnett: Especially people in the neighborhood, who are curious who will come from several blocks over to look at a house, in a part maybe out of curiosity.

Thom Dallman: Yeah, out of curiosity, so, that's kinda ... that's a pro and a con, you get the nosy neighbor, just wanting to check out the house ... check out what ... how you've been living and whatnot, but you also get those neighbors that maybe have family and friends that are thinking about moving into town, so they go check out the house they say, "Oh my gosh this would be the perfect fit for my family member", they go home they text it to their ... to their family members and so forth so ... I think that there is, like I said, that pro of those people in the neighborhood who are going to come and check it out for ... those people that might be moving into the neighborhood.

That's why, I ... we do a lot of our ... we do a lot of calling in our neighborhoods when we have listings, reaching out to the neighbors saying "Hey, we have this listing in your neighborhood, do you have family and friends looking to move in, we'd love to share this information with them." So, we do that with most of our listings so that we're kind of getting that extra exposure out there and stuff like that, so I think it's ... I think that extra exposure, the additional exposure for those non-tech people is huge, one of the biggest pros for doing an open house.

Dave Burnett: And there are times, where if you're driving by, especially to me, if you're driving by a newer subdivision and there's homes that are listed with an open house, my wife and I will stop by, we've had no intention of buying ... but, we'll still stop by just to see it. So, I guess just that added exposure it's that much more, so that is a pro.

Thom Dallman: Yeah, exactly, and then there's a pro for the buyers too in the fact that ... you don't have to commit to an agent, necessarily, to see the houses. You can ... tour these open houses, get to know other agents. We always talk about the fact that ... I'm a firm believer in you need to interview your agent and find that ... top professional that is going to be an advocate for you and a trusted advisor, so here's an opportunity to meet agents without the pressure of going to the offices, without the pressure of talking to them on the phone and getting online, for those people who don't want to do that, they can still kind of get an idea about an agent via the open house.

Dave Burnett: Let me ask you this question, as a consumer, I've always gotten the opinion that if you have an agent that is out, giving up their Saturday, giving up their Sunday at an open house ... this is a go-getter agent, this is somebody ...

Thom Dallman: This is a dedicated agent, that yeah ...

Dave Burnett: They're not going to be lazy, let's be honest. I don't want a lazy agent ...

Thom Dallman: Correct.

Dave Burnett: I want a go-getter, and this is somebody who is a go-getter because it's taking their day away to go do this.

Thom Dallman: Yeah, they're taking time away from their family, their friends ... most people have that concept of the weekends are to have fun, and stuff, and these are people who are dedicated to it, and ... out there working it on a Saturday and a Sunday trying to continue to grow their business and what not, so yeah, I would totally say that these are people who are wanting to work, and are willing to work, so ... I'm happy to say that ... all my agents will go show properties on the weekends, but there are occasional agents out there that are like, "Oh no, we'll show you the houses on Monday through Friday, after hours or during the day. My weekends are reserved for my family." Most agents, are good about showing on Saturdays, there's some that don't show on Sundays for personal reasons, and stuff like that ... but yeah, if they're doing open houses on the weekends, they usually are wanting ... [crosstalk 00:05:48]

Dave Burnett: Is this a good opportunity for me to be able to go on a kind of ... I mean if they're really busy it's one thing, but if you go in and you're the only person in there, is this an opportunity for me to kind of interview them and to see how they present a house, to see how they present a property?

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Dave Burnett: I mean it's one thing to sit behind a desk and say, "Here's what we'll do for you," it's another thing for me to see how they show that house.

Thom Dallman: Yeah, exactly. See how they talk about it, see how they hype it. Some agents just sit back and just let the clients walk around and don't really ask information and stuff, so ... yeah, it's really kind of ... it's a great way to kind of get to know the agent and to find out what they're about, for sure.

Dave Burnett: Because, we've talked about this, it's important that you get an agent that fits you, and fits your style, and that is important.

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Dave Burnett: Let's talk about ... a little bit, and I don't like to talk about the negative things, but let's talk about the cons. For me, as a homeowner ...

Thom Dallman: Sure.

Dave Burnett: I've got to give up my house for a weekend.

Thom Dallman: I was going to say, that's one of the biggest cons is that the sellers get displaced. They get ... they're gonna have to go find something to do for a couple of hours, while the open house is going on. But, hey, go hike Lucky Peak, or sorry Table Rock go [crosstalk 00:07:01]

Dave Burnett: Go camping.

Thom Dallman: Take your boat out. I think that's one of the biggest downfalls, or cons not downfalls, is that you do have to ... leave your home. Open houses are less effective with the seller’s present, and stuff like that ... so, there's that little bit of displacement. Once again, we talked a little bit about the con of the nosy neighbor, just wanting to check out what your day to day life is like, and stuff like that, and also, kind of another con is those ... unqualified buyers. Those buyers that come through that are not pre-qualified, they don't know what their ... what they ... qualify for, so, they may be people who are ... can't afford that price point of a house, once they kind of dive into it ...

Dave Burnett: I'm not going to tell you I haven't ... gone and looked with those million-dollar homes. I have, and ... but the agent is pretty sharp to figure out, yeah that isn't happening, "Just take a look around, and have a good day."

Thom Dallman: Yeah, exactly, and then there's always, unfortunately those ... scam artists, those ... people who do occasionally go to open houses to rummage through medicine cabinets, to rummage through drawers and stuff like that, so, you do want an agent that is going to be somewhat ...

Dave Burnett: Vigilant.

Thom Dallman: Vigilant, yeah, that's a good word for it. Vigilant on the people coming through to make sure that if ... there's something in question, make sure that they are kind of keeping an eye on them and stuff like that.

Dave Burnett: So, is that something that you train your agents here at Core Group Realty, that to make sure that ...

Thom Dallman: Yes, to just keep an eye out, if you're feeling unsafe make sure that you have 911 on your phone, kind of ready to go. Always make sure that you're checking the crawlspaces and closets and stuff like that when you're going to close up for the day and make sure no one is hiding in the house, you know that's happened actually.

Dave Burnett: Because that does happen.

Thom Dallman: Yeah, exactly, so we always advise our sellers ... the listing agents tell the sellers if you're going to do an open house make sure that you have personal items locked up, or even just box them up and ... store them somewhere where people can't find them, just for the interim of the sale ... medications, get medications out of your medicine cabinet and stuff like that. Just be safe, be diligent on protection of your personal items.

Dave Burnett: You want your house cleared out anyway, if you're trying to sell it. You don't want a lot of personal items lying around anyway.

Thom Dallman: We usually go through that when we go through our listing appointment, to help ... declutter your house, de-personalize it so that people ... the buyers can visualize their own stuff in there.

Dave Burnett: So in the last couple of minutes here let me ask you, if I'm a client and I have my home listed with Core Group Realty, is that something the agent will come and say "We can do an open house if you want", or will the agent come and say "We must do an Open ...", I mean how is that presented?

Thom Dallman: We present it with our sellers in mind, so it's up to the sellers whether they want the open houses done, where we have our team of buyer's agents who are more than happy to do open houses. We are ready and prepared, we have all the signage, we have ... we make sure and put them on every possible place on the social media so that people are seeing that we are having an open house to get the most exposure. We do it on Craigslist, MLS, Facebook, social media ... our Instagram account ... and stuff like that so we get the most exposure out there for when we do them. Just for that off chance that we run into that buyer that is going to be perfect for the house.

Once again, it's all about additional exposure and being able to share this out there a bit more with people and getting people interested in it.

Dave Burnett: Perfect reason to become a friend on Facebook, and like Core Group Realty's website ...

Thom Dallman: Yeah, please do.

Dave Burnett: So if you're on Facebook that way they'll let you know when the open houses are, where they're at ...

Thom Dallman: Correct.

Dave Burnett: And you can do it that way as well, so, perfect. Thom Dallman, thank you so much, appreciate it and looking forward to seeing more good things here in the Treasure Valley as we go through the months when it comes to real estate. This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, being brought to you by Diversified Mortgage and the folks at Core Group Realty. If you have any real estate needs, any questions at all, if you even have a question they have ... agents standing by, they have their customer care service right here for you at 933-7777, so give them a call if you have any question at all, and check it out at coregrouprealty.com.